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Striker who Arsenal tried to sign before Jesus now has 3 World Cup goals, may win Golden Boot

Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images
Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images
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A player linked to Arsenal last summer could well wind up being the World Cup top goalscorer.

The Gunners spent £45 million on Gabriel Jesus in July and you won’t find many-a-Gooner complaining about the Brazilian, such is his brilliance.

But before he joined Arsenal, there was, in fact, speculation about Alvaro Morata moving to North London.

According to TMW in Italy, as covered by HITC Sport at the time, the Emirates Stadium outfit had made an offer for the Atletico Madrid hitman, but obviously nothing materialised.

Now 30, the Spain international hasn’t had a brilliant last few years.

Photo by Angel Martinez – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images

Morata hasn’t scored more than 15 league goals in a single campaign since the 2016-17 season, but he is reminding the world of his goalscoring exploits in Qatar.

He opened the scoring early on tonight as Spain lost to Japan but survived a massive scare to still progress into the latter stages.

In doing so, Morata took his tally for the tournament to three, tying himself alongside Enner Valencia, Kylian Mbappe, Marcus Rashford and Cody Gakpo in the hunt for the competition’s coveted World Cup Golden Boot award.

Of course, even going on to win that prize won’t exactly make Arsenal curse their decision to sign Jesus instead of going all the way with Morata.

But with Eddie Nketiah a rather questionable covering option for the South American, well some Gunners’ supporters might feel as if there was room for two strikers signed last summer, particularly given that two were released in 2022 – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette – and Folarin Balogun was loaned to France.

Spain v Portugal: UEFA Nations League - League Path Group 2
Photo by Alvaro Medranda/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images